Using Activity Songs with Young Children

Do you have young children or work with toddlers or preschoolers and are looking for some fun, interactive songs? Nowadays, there is a multitude of activity songs that you can sing and dance to in order to help children improve all kinds of development skills.

How Teachers and Parents Use Activity Songs

Early Child Development teachers that work with toddlers and preschoolers often use a variety of activity songs during circle time. If you're focusing on academics during circle time, you might try singing and doing activities with 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, because it teaches young children how to subtract from five by holding up the appropriate numbers of fingers. Activity songs like Old MacDonald Had a Farm also work well cause it teaches toddlers the words to the song and their animals, and preschoolers can even branch out and chime in with animals from a zoo or an aquarium for fun.

In addition, activity songs are also ideal for music and movement time, as they allow young children to get their energy out and learn how to listen and follow directions. Songs like the Hokey Pokey and If You're Happy and You know It allow them to show their emotions, sing, and dance.

How Activity Songs Benefit Children

Head Start states that music encourages children to notice their feelings and act them out while singing and dancing. It also teaches them to follow directions and imitate different movements, such as clapping their hands, stomping their feet, or acting like different animals. These all enhance their sensory, cognitive, and physical development.

About Our Activity Songs

Looking for popular kids' song you can and sing along to? Our Activity and Action songs category is the right place for you. Here you'll find fun, memorable songs that you can share with children at home, in summer camp and even on long car journeys. With so many great kids' songs to choose from it can be tough to know where to start. But a few of our reader favorites have to be classics like He Jumped From 40 Thousand Feet. This is The Bus That Never Stops. or a song everyone remembers from their childhood - The Wheels on The Bus go Round and Round.

There is no shortage of great songs to choose from you'll be spoilt for choice. If you can't find the song that you're looking for, you can use our handy search tool. Or, get in touch with us so we can find the song you want and add it to our growing list of popular activity songs.